


Pennæ Branded

by kingofokay



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 2014, Future Castiel, Future Dean Winchester, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-03-18
Packaged: 2017-12-05 18:54:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/726743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingofokay/pseuds/kingofokay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It took three sittings. The lithe, pale figure curled around the back of a dingy chair, a handy supply of stained but boiled-sanitized rags, the dated tattoo machine. Dean was with him, the first time. Let Castiel hold on to his hand, listened to the high-pitched grind as the iron squealed to life, smelled the sharp tang of hot ink and burning flesh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pennæ Branded

**Author's Note:**

> based off this beautiful painting by zennia.  
> http://brightfallenstars.tumblr.com/post/34304054421/exit-wounds-dedicated-to-wayward-and-graceless-and

When apocalypse fell and virus wound a dark and decaying trail across the surface of the globe, society was forced to make many concessions. Camp Chitaqua did not have time or resources to spare on superfluous activity like the arts. Creative activity was limited to spawning new ways of destroying the virus-ridden creatures effectively. The craft of tattoo would have fallen by the wayside as well, except Winchester law dictated that every member of the camp be branded with an anti-possession symbol

The large back piece took far more ink than they could actually spare, with such limited resources. It didn't matter, though. It was a well known but never mentioned fact around camp that Dean had a soft spot for the fallen angel's needs, and if one didn't pick squabbles with Dean Winchester before the virus broke out, it was doubly true now.

It took three sittings. The lithe, pale figure curled around the back of a dingy chair, a handy supply of stained but boiled-sanitized rags, the dated tattoo machine. Dean was with him, the first time. Let Castiel hold on to his hand, listened to the high-pitched grind as the iron squealed to life, smelled the sharp tang of hot ink and burning flesh. 

The slender fingers wrapped around Dean's calloused hand trembled with pain, with drugs, with humanity. Castiel cried out as the needle ground into flesh over his spine, inhaled with a sharply drawn hiss. He fell silent, blue eyes squeezed shut, clinging to the leader-hunter's hand. Dean was stoic, impassive, watching fingertips of the artist's free hand press soft into the marred, pale skin of the was-angel's back. Castiel made another sharp, keening sound as the needle ground over the thin, delicate lines of scar across his shoulder blades. Dean reached up to rest his other hand against the angel's rough, unshaven jaw, gently pressing his thumb over Castiel's lips. The movement quieted the angel, and he leaned into the touch. 

The linework was relatively quick, an afternoon’s worth of work, sun dipping below the hazy, vacant horizon and evening generators cranking to life by the time the artist finished. Dean had remained the entire time, despite the plethora of more pressing matters that required the leader’s attentions. He was a silent, solid rock for the clinging angel, only speaking to deny Castiel’s begging pleas for the medicine bottles littered across the seraph’s cabin. The artist packed his gear and slipped out into the gathering dusk, but the lights kept burning in the forlorn cabin, and Dean did not report to base camp until far into the third watch.

The second session laid down the basework for the shading, and Dean was out on a mission. He wasn’t supposed to be, but the beginning of the job had gotten botched, and they were already down two men. Alternate routes were forced on them, and the whole schedule was pushed back, creating an unplanned night mission.

So Castiel shivered alone beneath the needles, clutching desperately at the chair back. And if the linework had been pain, then the shading was excruciating agony. Wrenched cries echoed across the camp from the cabin, rages against pain and suffering and loss and uselessness. Swearing dripped from his lips like honey, sometimes English and sometimes Enochian and sometimes utterly unintelligible. The artist easily conceded to Castiel’s demands for medication, if only to have him finally sit still in the chair. Blue eyes glazed as drugs slowly wound into the bloodstream, and he leaned slack against the chair back as the tattooist completed the base layer of shading.

The third seating came several weeks later, to allow the broken skin time to heal. Long weeks, and Castiel could feel every prick of a scab, every ache of a muscle, every lack of ability to speed along the process. The artist set up for the final round in Castiel’s cabin, and the air was tense. Dean was present this time, and the tattooist had not yet forgotten the reaming he had received when their leader had come home from an excruciating mission to find the angel drugged out to incapacity. 

Castiel is quiet, this time. Silent as he held tight to Dean’s rough hands, eyes open and fixed down on their intertwining fingers. Dean let his own gaze, exhausted and faded, stare mindlessly out the open window. The sun was warm that morning, and the gentle chirp of birds in the surrounding forest lent a false sense of serenity. There was a catch of hitched breath as the needles roved over those scarlines, but other than that there was no sound to be heard beside the undulating grind of the iron.

The morning stretched on, and Dean’s fingers tingled with lost circulation, but he didn’t shift his grip in the angel’s hands. Castiel was quiet, but strung taut as a bowstring, occasionally flicking his gaze up to Dean’s face though the glance was not returned. Finally, the quick decrescendo of the needles falling silent, and the tattooist declared the work finished. He packed up his supplies, and after he left the only sound of the cabin was the angel’s ragged breath.

“How does it look?” Castiel’s rough voice croaked out, wrecked and exhausted.

Dean stood as Castiel’s hands slid free, boots loud on the creaky wooden floor as he rounded the chair. Ink still fresh and glossed, shine of blood oozing softly from the lines, but the tattoo is clear: black wings spill from the sharp, bony curve of Castiel’s shoulder blades, partial-covering the lines of scar that arch along the same path. Between the wings and straddling his spine was an anti-possession mark, but it was hardly the focus of the piece. Shaded feathers brush up and across Castiel’s shoulders, spill down the slender curve of his back. The work is quite exquisite. Each quill is detailed and dark, from the small, soft tufts of down at the upper ridge to the large, powerful pinions trailing along Castiel’s hips.

And Dean doesn’t know how to answer the once-seraph’s question. He knew how sharply it paled in comparison to the raven-iridescent pinions Castiel had shown him years ago, though even then his wings were already growing ragged around the edges. The oil-slick glimmer to them, the glossy warmth, the comfortable muskiness. And he knows there’s so much more he can’t even fathom: Chrysler-sized forms and eye-burning light and - Dean cut off the thought process abruptly. That is not a safe road to lead his mind down, and he was keenly aware of it.

The last few years have hardened the green eyes set just above suntanned freckles, they have worked creases into the never-quite-youthful brow, they have set a hard frown permanently into the curve of those lips. But there behind Castiel’s back, where nobody can see, it all softens. Just a glint reflected of the broken heart and broken dreams and broken world.

“Good,” Dean finally responds, “It looks good.”


End file.
